As we approach the end of the spring 2023 semester, I realize how much has happened at FIU Business over the past year. You will read about some of it in this issue of FIU Business Now. Our stories include insights from the signature conferences we hosted in person during the fall 2022 semester, our annual REact Real Estate Conference and the annual Power Up Women’s Leadership Conference. One of the speaker sessions at Power Up served as inspiration for this issue’s cover story on what Generation Z expects of their leaders.

Our conferences are just one way in which we touch the community, a priority for FIU Business, in addition to student success and research excellence. You will also read about the Miami-Dade Business Navigator program. Headed up by the FSBDC at FIU Business, the $2.5 million project has helped launch five new business ventures and assisted 700 already-established businesses in South Florida (page 3). Within our own community, in the fall of 2022, we established a Blackstone LaunchPad at FIU, housed at our Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center. Made possible with a $500,000 grant, the Blackstone LaunchPad strengthens our commitment to providing our students with the tools they need to assess new enterprise opportunities and start new ventures.

The momentum at FIU Business continues to show in top program and faculty rankings, which you will see in the Briefing section of FIU Business Now. The expertise of our faculty and alumni is also showcased in one of our feature stories, which focuses on a challenge every company and individual must think about today: cybersecurity.

This issue will introduce you to three FIU Business alumni in top positions in the cruise; air conditioning, heating and refrigeration; and accounting industries. In addition, you will meet two FIU Business students who have benefited from a unique scholarship fund that was established to help students who are single parents. Read about that and much more in the pages that follow.

The momentum we are seeing at FIU Business would not be possible without the support of our alumni and other friends in the community. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the spring 2023 issue of FIU Business Now.

William Hardin,
Dean, FIU College of Business